Thursday, September 1, 2011

I blogged recently on how far TSA has come and what we’ve done to meet the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations. If you haven’t read that post, take a few moments to review itand you’ll see just how much we’ve accomplished in all areas of aviation security.

There is no doubt that aviation security is safer than it was on 9/11. You’ll never eliminate the threats though… They’ll continue to evolve, and we are equipped to evolve with them.

A Bipartisan Policy Center report released yesterday somewhat echoes what I said in my postand cites specific TSA successes in the areas of information sharing, pre-screening and matching all passengers against government terrorist watch lists to keep travel secure.

In addition, TSA has made significant enhancements to improve technology and to protect passenger privacy. What we do have is a solid lineup of state of the art world class security technology that when used in conjunction with constantly improving processes and a well-trained staff, provides a safe and solidlayer of securityat our airports. In fact, TSA has certified 10 Explosive Detection Systems and is a global leader in setting the standards for technology that safely screens passengers, luggage and air cargo. Advanced imaging technology (AIT), intelligence, behavioral detection officers, canine teams, and federal air marshals are also key parts of our layered approach.And with the adoption of automated target recognition software for AIT screening devices, we continue to improve passenger privacy.

Alone, each layer enhances security. Together, they provide a formidable defense that detects threats and deters potential attackers to keep the traveling public safe. And we’re always testing new technologies and procedures to enable us to evolve with the threats while improving passenger security and privacy.

If you’d like to comment on an unrelated topic you can do so in our Off Topic Comments post. You can also view our blog post archives or search our blog to find a related topic to comment in. If you have a travel related issue or question that needs an immediate answer, you can contact a Customer Support Manager at the airport you traveled, or will be traveling through by using Talk to TSA.

“Our conclusion is that despite 10 years of working on the problem, the aviation screening system still falls short in critical ways with respect to detection,”

The authors cite numerous Government Accountability Office reports that outlined ill-defined requirements, poorly designed test and evaluation procedures and the premature deployment of technologies into airports that cost the taxpayers “significant amounts” of funding.

Again a quotation from the report, "As far as the full body scanners that reveal a subject body underneath clothing, health and privacy concerns have not been fully addressed."

In addition the authors also state that Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board established by Congress has been dormant the last three years.

This is despite the fact that there have been some significant issues in this area dealing with pat downs and full body scans that such a panel was designed to examine. This last paragraph is my comment and not in the report.

Gee, how convenient that you neglected to comment on the harsh criticism of TSA in the report as well. Let me help you out here.

"We are not satisfied with improvements to TSA’s explosives screening capability. With significant federal funding, TSA has deployed large numbers of enhanced screening equipment used at passenger checkpoints and baggage check screening. Unfortunately, explosives detection technology lacks reliability and lags in its capability to automatically identify concealed weapons and explosives. The next generation of whole body scanning machines also are not effective at detecting explosives hidden within the body and raise privacy and health concerns that DHS has not fully addressed. Our conclusion is that despite 10 years of working on the problem, the aviation screening system still falls short in critical ways with respect to detection.

"The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has cited flaws in the way that the TSA and the DHS Science and Technology Directorate conduct research, development, testing, and evaluation of new technology. GAO has found weaknesses in developing and articulating technology program requirements. Ill-defined requirements make it difficult for the private sector to design cost-effective screening equipment that meets DHS’s needs. In addition, GAO faults TSA for not conducting and completing testingand evaluation of new technologies to ensure that they work in an operational environment, as well as not incorporating cost and benefit information while making technology acquisition decisions. As a result, significant amounts ofmoney have been wasted and the GAO continues to identify serious holes in virtually every security layer. Given the threat we face to our transportation systems, we cannot afford to perpetuate these mistakes."

If I were running TSA, I'd be awfully cautious about using this report as a basis for bragging.

You can keep repeating your assertions, but it doesn't make them true.

100% of passengers are not pre-screened against government watch lists.

The horribly-designed Secure Flight program pre-screens the IDs used to purchase tickets, not the IDs of the people actually passing through the checkpoint. What it does do is put all airline customers at additional risk of fraud.

There's also no evidence that the watch lists are actually useful, even if the TSA did check actual passengers.

"We are not satisfied with improvements to TSA’s explosivesscreening capability. With significant federal funding,TSA has deployed large numbers of enhanced screening equipment used at passenger checkpoints and baggage check screening. Unfortunately, explosives detectiontechnology lacks reliability and lags in its capability toautomatically identify concealed weapons and explosives."

The report further states about your new scanners, "The next generation of whole body scanning machines also are not effective at detecting explosives hidden within the body and raise privacy and health concerns that DHS hasnot fully addressed."

Finally the reports makes the following conclusion, "Our conclusion is that despite 10 yearsof working on the problem, the aviation screening system still falls short in critical ways with respect to detection."

In other words the report states TSA is failing miserably in checking for weapons and explosives at airport security checkpoints. That TSA's full body scanners aren't doing the job they were purchased to do. That there are serious health and safety concerns about the full body scanners that TSA has not addressed.

In other words the report generally lambastes the job TSA is doing at airport security checkpoints, and states clearly the checkpoints are not succeeding in making travelers safer.

Try as you might, you can try spinning the report any way you want but you can't hide from the report. It's about time you actually do your job.

Are you kidding? That report trashed your use of body scanners as ineffective and gave the TSA an "F" for explosive detection. Great Spin. Priceless. If you really want to provide security you first need to be honest with yourself and the American people.

Despite the Transportation Security Administration rushing billions of dollars worth of screening machines into airports after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, a report card on the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations says the nation is “still highly vulnerable to aviation security threats.”

“We are not satisfied with TSA’s explosives screening capability,” the National Security Preparedness Group, a bipartisan collection of former members of the commission, said in a Sept. 1 report.

The report, “Tenth Anniversary Report Card: The Status of the 9/11 Commission Recommendations” said the explosive detection technology lacks reliability and lags in its capability to automatically identify concealed weapons and explosives.

The report’s co-authors, Lee Hamilton and Thomas Kean, vice chairman and chairman of the 9/11 Commission respectively, noted that al Qaida and its affiliates continue to see aviation as a prime target.

“Our conclusion is that despite 10 years of working on the problem, the aviation screening system still falls short in critical ways with respect to detection,” the authors said. They cited numerous Government Accountability Office reports that outlined ill-defined requirements, poorly designed test and evaluation procedures and the premature deployment of technologies into airports that cost the taxpayers “significant amounts” of funding.

As far as the full body scanners that reveal a subject body underneath clothing, health and privacy concerns have not been fully addressed, they added.

“Given the threat we face to our transportation systems, we cannot afford to perpetuate these mistakes,” the report said.

If the bipartisan report favors the TSA so well you should have probably added a link to it. I guess you would not want the average American to actually read the report as it is not the glowing review of the TSA that you claim in your post.

Instead you rehased you previous post and the only direct reference to the bipartison report in your post is as follows:

"A Bipartisan Policy Center report released yesterday somewhat echoes what I said in my post and cites specific TSA successes in the areas of information sharing, pre-screening and matching all passengers against government terrorist watch lists to keep travel secure."

So they agree with information sharing and prescreening. Do they also support the long lines, unquestionable athority, and gropings that the TSA passes off as security checks?

JustSayin said...Grand total of terrorist attacks since 9/11 and the formation of the TSA: 0

Grand total of terrorist attacks since The Nintendo GameCube was released in Japan: 0

Post hoc ergo propter hoc- Post hoc ergo propter hoc, Latin for "after this, therefore because of this," is a logical fallacy that states, "Since that event followed this one, that event must have been caused by this one."

In other words, you have yet to prove the TSA was actually responsible for the lack of terrorist attacks. Simply saying A occurred, then B occurred, Therefore, A caused B is a logical fallacy. Using logical fallacies (especially after they have been pointed out numerous times) makes one look, well... less than intelligent.

TSA is a scarecrow organization, set up to look mean and scare away the crows (bad guys). Ironicly, the scarecrow has reversed it's effect. It has become a hinderance to the average citizen, a burden to an already weakened economy and an embarrassment to us all. There is no enemy, 911 was an INSIDE JOB!

They should replace the TSA's layers of alleged security with the much more reliable and verified eight layers contained in your average frosted mini-wheat. It would greatly improve both security and civil liberties.

Let's see. Almost ten years in, and the TSA hasn't figured out how to maintain security while dealing with the public in a civil manner. This blog got started with a veritable deluge of "rude screener" stories, and these stories continue to this very day.

Contrast this to the local courthouse where I live. They've got some rules that you wouldn't anticipate -- such as a ban on anything that can take a picture, or record video or sound.

The sheriff's deputies manning the checkpoint calmly ask if you've got a cell phone or recorder. If you've got a phone, they calmly and politely check it to see if it has a camera function. If it does, they calmly and politely let you know you'll need to take it back to your car.

If you set off the WTMD, they calmly and politely go over you with a wand.

There's no yelling, no barking of orders -- just a calm and professional security checkpoint. In fact, they ask why you're at the courthouse, and direct you to the appropriate office.

That's a far cry from the DYWTFT mindset.

My parent's generation fought to prevent the spread of fascism, and both my parents served. I served in the Cold War to contain communism.

When I see what has happened in the name of the "war on terror", it makes me sad. Security is not mutually exclusive with ordinary civility and the Bill of Rights.

I read about the "tenth anniversary report card," which included yet another reiteration of several criticisms that have been consistently leveled against (and consistently ignored by) the TSA. So of course I came here to see how Blogger Bob would spin it.

It was what I expected. It's essentially a repeat of his response to the GAO report last year that found the SPOT program an ineffective waste of money lacking any valid scientific basis. That blog post was headed "SPOT Program Going Strong," and lauded both the program and the officers doing great work implementing it. It's the standard propaganda technique of countering damaging truthful criticism with a smokescreen of effusively laudatory lies. Blogger Bob knows his craft very well indeed!

Blogger Bob and his Team are doing the best they can at an impossible job. They're charged with public relations for an agency that, throughout its decade-long history, has done everything it can to earn the incredulity and disdain of the traveling public. Sara Palin's phrase "putting lipstick on a pig" might well apply to the job of the "TSA Blog Team."

(This comment probably won't be posted. I have submitted about a dozen comments in the last month, and NOT ONE OF THEM was accepted. I reviewed the "guidelines" and can't for the life of me see what I'm violating. Especially when I see the comments that are posted, some of which are more anti-TSA and less substantive than anything I submitted. I guess the Blog Team are celebrating the imminent Anniversary by extending to blog moderation the capricious "unpredictability" for which they are renowned. It must serve some useful security function here, just as it does at airports. But at least someone on the team had to read it before they deleted it.)

One notable TSA achievement is to magnify the impact and effectiveness of terrorist plots. Even if a plot fails to damage an airplane (the shoe and underwear bombers), or is stopped in an early stage (the liquid bombers), the plotters can rely on the TSA to make the plot a lasting success with a reaction that increases the difficulty and frustration of air travel.

The message the TSA (unintentionally) sends terrorists is that they'll help any plot succeed in doing lasting damage. Provoking a reactive "security enhancement" that drains millions of dollars annually from productive use, and wastes unknowable hours of travelers' time while eroding that much more of their privacy, freedom, and convenience may not have the immediate impact of an airplane going down in flames. But it's at least as effective at furthering the terrorist's goal of damaging the enemy.

The failed London liquid bomb plotters will rot away forgotten in British prison cells. But the TSA gives them continuing success with the War on Liquids that (inconsistently) inflicts "pain points" on millions of people daily. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, will spend the rest of his life in Supermax solitary confinement. But every passenger standing shoeless at TSA checkpoints contributes to his continuing success. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber, faces the same future as Reid. But the TSA pays him grateful tribute whenever they irradiate and/or administer a humiliating pat down to a passenger. And of course, the establishment of the TSA itself as a despised agency that brands every traveler as an enemy may have been the most serious and lasting damage Osama bin Laden inflicted on this country.

I'm sure the well-meaning TSA leaders have never intended to aid terrorists. But that unintended effect-- resulting from unchecked bureaucratic expansion that makes "security" increasingly costly, intrusive, and burdensome-- is just one of the TSA's many flaws and failings.

Anonymous said..."One notable TSA achievement is to magnify the impact and effectiveness of terrorist plots. Even if a plot fails to damage an airplane (the shoe and underwear bombers), or is stopped in an early stage (the liquid bombers), the plotters can rely on the TSA to make the plot a lasting success with a reaction that increases the difficulty and frustration of air travel."

Bravo! Very well put.

The TSA has allowed terrorists to *hugely* magnify the effects of their actions. Any half-baked plot to bring something slightly dangerous on a plane results in a gigantic expensive and abusive effort by the TSA to combat this new "threat".